True Colors: A Triptych
by Beguile
Summary: Frank hasn't seen white torture since he was overseas. Now, he's found Red curled up in a hole in the wall, sense-deprived, and he killed the guys who did it too quickly for him to truly be known as the Punisher.
1. Red

Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: Frank hasn't seen white torture since he was overseas. Now, he's found Red curled up in a hole in the wall, sense-deprived, and he killed the guys who did it too quickly for him to truly be known as the Punisher.

Warnings: this story includes extreme sensory deprivation and isolation used for torture.

Timeline: After the events of "New York's Finest" but before "Penny and Dime". Spoilers until then.

Author's Notes: I'm still reeling from the finale of season 2, and it seems like the only response is my usual response – write some h/c. Actually, with Frank involved, this is more like hurt/hurt slightly less? Or hurt/hurt differently?

This is actually based on a prompt I received for JIC asking for Matt subjected to sensory deprivation. I can't find the name of the prompter in my notes, but I thank you, anonymous source of inspiration! This will be a story in three parts with Punisher and Matt, because one thing I can say for sure is that the Punisher was done so, so right. I hope that I have written him halfway accurate here.

Readers, thank you for your kind support! I look forward to hearing your thoughts about the second season! Please enjoy!

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True Colours: A Triptych

Part One: Red

They got quite the set-up: an old brownstone struggling against dilapidation at first glance, but up-close the ground feels eerily stable like it's gotten thicker under your feet. The foundation has been reinforced. Theirs is a basement made for screaming, tussling, and whatever the fuck else the lowlifes have going on these days. Frank cases the place and spots one guy returning with take-out for four. Quite a party. Frank wonder who the guest of honour is, whether he's a gang affiliate or some poor guy getting squeezed for info.

Security is lax. These aren't the lowlifes Frank thought based on their slovenly errand boy: they've got enough training to hold a gun, some idea of what aim is. But they're greedier, hungrier, simpler, raised on action movies and videogames given how many of them pull the trigger well past their clips being empty. They think throwing enough bullets at a situation solves problems. Maybe in an open area, but the basement is a torture-chamber-formerly-known-as-workshop. There's shit and shelving in various stages of mantling that provides cover for Frank as the bullets fly. He even gets a chance to stand still for two of them - let 'em feel like they have the upper hand for a second – before he blows one's head off and tosses a knife into the other.

Errand Boy dashes for the stairs and catches a slew of bullets in his back. His spine splits open and spills tomato sauce and angel hair pasta on his short flight towards the ground. The last guy fumbles to reload. Fuck, he can't even do that right. His hands are shaking. Because it's real easy to be king of the fucking castle when you're the one getting the jump of people. Frank aims and waits. Once the gun is loaded and pointed towards him, Frank fires. Twitchy slams into the tool bench and lands on the floor in a heap, a perfect circle of blood on his forehead; a heap of brain and gore on the wall behind him.

The basement goes quiet. A thin mumble of blood dripping and Frank's heart pounding runs in the background. He scans the area, wondering if there's someone he missed, but nope: one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish. Upstairs is quiet, rotting. Nobody else comes to join the party.

Frank takes a walk around to see what the boys were up to down here, whether they brought anyone to play lately. Old blood mottles the tools decorating the walls. Chains lace the ceiling like party streamers. There's a mop and bucket in the corner that stink of death. The drain in the corner has been cleaned more thoroughly than a hospital OR. Yeah, yeah, Frank fucking gets it: this place is a torture chamber. Now where the hell is the person they were working on? Or at least what's left of him? Four guys wouldn't just hang out in this basement when they could be getting their own take-out.

An empty glove catches his eye. From the angle it looks to be giving him the finger. Frank lifts it from the shelf, searches for a match. There's blood on the knuckles, and the black and red material is strong, black-ops grade. "Fuck," he hisses, recognizing the glove. He's been punched by this glove. He finds the other under the shelving unit. The body armour is heaped in the corner, pants too, and the devil mask is on the bench. Fuckers were probably taking turns wearing it, getting a peek through Red's eyes.

Keeping the mask is one thing. As far as souvenirs go, they could do worse. But the armour seems like overkill unless they were planning on wearing it. Red's definitely here, in the basement, tucked away in some hidey-hole buffered by the extra concrete lining the foundation. Frank leans close and tracks the walls, knocking occasionally for an echo of empty space.

He doesn't get far before there's an answering knock - persistent, rhythmic – from inside the wall. Hidden behind a shelf of car parts, scrap metal and half-finished inventions. Frank shoves it out of the way. The seam in the drywall is obvious, as are the padlocks sealing it shut. Frank shoots them off and rips the wall open.

Three feet high, two feet deep, and two feet wide. It's the world's worst coffin and Red is curled inside it. At least, Frank thinks that's Red. Admittedly, it's hard to tell when he's not wearing his costume and is tangled up in a tiny crawlspace. Frank recognizes the posture though. The defeated kneel that comes from being restrained and cut off from light and life. His hands are restrained behind his back in a bloodied denim bag that's been cable tied into place. He's been shackled with a motorcycle helmet, blindfold, and a gas mask to strip him of his senses. No sight, no smell, no sound, no taste. Red wrapped up inside himself until he rots from the inside-out.

"Jesus," Frank hasn't seen this kind of shit since he was overseas. It was monstrous then and it is fucking monstrous now. He scans the bodies, wishing even one of them was alive enough for hurting. Blood drips and rot answers him. Fine then. Frank'll find out who they were working for. Fuckers like these aren't smart enough to come up with white torture on their own.

He turns back to Red, who has enough sense to know his prison is open. He rocks up and down with every breath. Fear makes him even less recognizable. Frank rolls his eyes, sighing. "No easy way to do this, Red," he decides, reaches in, and pulls Red out by the scruff of his coveralls.

It's a fight: a bad one, a weak one, hardly worthy of being called a fight save for Red's dedication to the cause. He is determined to do something, worthless as his efforts are under all this sensory-depriving gear. He sabotages the sitting position Frank drags him into so he can use his legs as a weapon. Frank lets him horse-kick the air a couple of times before grabbing him by the shoulders, fumbling with the strap on the helmet. He tears it off Red's head and tosses it away, earning a knee to the jaw for his trouble. Frank's lip splits on his tooth.

"Fuck, Red," he makes quick work of the blindfold and backs off, giving Red some time to adjust to the light and see him. Red spends a long time bowed under the harsh basement lights. Jesus, he's a kid. A fucking kid who plays dress-up and beats up bad guys. Frank bides his time guessing how long he was in the box: fifteen minutes, an hour, a day. He tilts down, getting a look at the kid's face to see if his eyes have adjusted yet. The basement isn't bright, but the fluorescence might be making his eyes burn if he's been in the dark for long enough. Yet Red's not blinking. He rollicks up and down with measured breaths, staring into the floor blindly.

Frank shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot: fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. They left him in there long enough to fucking blind him, and instead of ripping the confession out of one of their worthless lungs, Frank has to break the news to the kid by himself. He mutters some lie, something about the basement being dark, before he gets his head out of his ass and plucks the ear plugs out of Red's skull.

"You hear me now?" Frank asks.

Indeed, Red does, as evidenced by his spasming and screaming raggedly into the gas mask. He flops backwards into the wall, slamming his head between his shoulders, eyes squeezed tight against what, fucking what? The basement is quiet. The neighbourhood bustles dimly outside the concrete. Frank nabs the kid by his shoulders, "Red. Red, stop, stop. Jesus…" A stamp of blood marks the wall where he was knocking.

Red's tantrum continues in all its back-arching, eyes-bulging, wheeze-screaming agony. He bucks, he spasms, he kicks, he cries, and for the first ever, Frank is back in the fucking desert with one of those baby body marines who left home too soon and learned what war was too late. "Red, listen to me. Fucking look…" he swallows, flits his eyes away. _These assholes took his eyes_. He grows a pair and gets back to the job, "Listen to me, Red."  
The kid headbutts him. Frank catches Red's face with his chest and tears off the gas mask straps. It clatters to the floor when Red tosses himself back towards the wall.

"Better?" Frank asks.

Red pukes. Gross, goopy strands of bile splatter on the floor, in his lap, across Frank's boots. Yep, exactly like the fucking desert, 'cept he doesn't smell like partially digested MREs afterwards. Snot, tears, blood, and bile dribble out through Red's cracked lips. He hesitates to breathe again. "Yeah," Frank agrees, "stinks down here."  
As if in response, Red's thrashing starts up again. He bucks against the wall, his bound hands, his tears. The sounds coming from his throat more animal than human, all dry and broken and desperate. "Okay, Red," Frank thinks he gets it. He drags Red away from the wall before he can give himself a concussion. The kid falls back into his chest with a weak scream. Frank draws a knife and slashes the cable tie. He has to dig it out of the kid's skin and rip the denim off his mangled wrists to get Red free. There's blood pooled in the bag, blood all over the kid's fingers, up his wrists. Deep slashes mark Red's forearms from his fright with the cable tie. Frank's amazed he didn't severe an artery when he clearly reached the bone with his struggles.

Red keens as he lifts his arms, newly freed, towards his ears. They get halfway to his shoulders before they fall back to his sides. Finally, Frank gets it. He places his hands on either side of the kid's head and holds them there, blocking out the sound. For a moment, he's done worse, not better, but then something takes hold and Red settles down. His moans quiet. His crying stops. His breathing evens out, adopting the rhythm of Frank's steady heart rate.

"How long they have you in the box, Red," Frank comments, because the basement is quiet. Dead quiet, literally. Red's making worse noises than his captors could. What Frank is really asking is how long it took to break him, because Red is really, truly shattered. "How long they have you in the box."  
He leans Red back against the wall, breaking one hand from either ear at a time to lift Red's shaking palms up as replacements. "Hold," he orders, and the kid falls in line, crushing his skull, squeezing his eyes shut until his eyelids picker. Frank pats him on the shoulder, retreats to collect Red's costume before they leave.

Amidst the soft sounds from a recovering Red – bare feet shifting against the concrete floor, tired moans emerging from his mouth, the almost-cries he emits when he tries to let go of his ears and can't – Frank picks up on something else. A quiet, pained groan. He inspects the bodies: one fish, two fish, red fish…ah, red fish is waking up and appreciating the knife in his chest.

There's not a single siren in the distance as far as Frank can hear, and he climbs the basement stairs to hear, stepping on one fish's body as he goes. New York's Finest. More like New York's Latest. He sets Red's costume on the stairs and descends.

Red Fish coughs, staring at the knife sticking out of his ribs dumbly. He can't figure out how it got there, what it's doing there, who it belongs to. Frank is only too happy to answer those questions for him. He looms, then kneels, palming the handle of the knife. Gives it a twist.

"Frank."

"You with me, Red?" one look tells him the answer's no, Red's barely there. His head's still framed by his bloodied hands, and his face is crumbling. He stares blindly into the ceiling, mouth open from exhaustion, and continues struggling for self-control. "Jesus, can't string two words together for yourself, but I go to get my knife back out of a guy's chest-"

Red gets one foot on the ground, then the other. He pushes himself an inch off the ground before falling. Frank scoffs, rips his knife out of the guy's chest, and slashes at his face until his eyeballs are draining out of their sockets.

Under the screaming, Frank hears Red's feet give out from under him. Hears him collapsing on the floor with an animal groan. "FRANK!" his yelling is little more than a rasp. His hands struggle to find his ears. The sobbing starts up again from the noise or _being fucking blinded_ or having his stupid moral code broken five feet away – whatever. Frank leaves the guy screaming and bleeding, blind as the kid who wants to forgive him, and wanders back over to Red.

There's a small puddle of saliva, blood, snot, and sweat from where he can't lift his face off the floor. He covers his right ear with his hand but can't see to find the left, or maybe he wants to listen to the guy bitching his eyes some more. Frank takes it as an invitation and nabs Red by the arm.

The kid jumps onto one leg, something that would have helped him attack if he had any strength left to speak of, but all he manages to do is fall. He cracks his head against the floor and drops limp in Frank's grasp, stunned. "Finally made yourself useful," Frank shrugs. By the time his struggle continues, Red is over Frank's shoulder, and they're on their way up the stairs. Frank picks up the costume on their way out of the basement.

Red's moaning gets louder as they move up the stairs. Frank pats him on the hip, about to tell him to shut up when Red drops limply against his spine, passed out.

"Oh, thank Christ," Frank says, already dreading the lecture he's going to get for blinding somebody. He really doesn't want to hear about the fire he starts as a parting gift. Strange, though, that when the building collapses four blocks later, Red dangling over his shoulder like a wet noodle, Frank thinks he feels the kid reach for his ears again and moan.

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Happy reading!


	2. White

Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: Frank hasn't seen white torture since he was overseas. Now, he's found Red curled up in a hole in the wall, sense-deprived, and he killed the guys who did it too quickly for him to truly be known as the Punisher.

Warnings: this story includes extreme sensory deprivation and isolation used for torture.

Author's Notes: In the comics, Punisher's dog is named Max. I kept the name here for the pitbull Frank rescues from the Irish.

To say that I was overwhelmed by the response to the previous chapter is an understatement. I am so, so grateful for all the interest and support! I really appreciated the comments about characterization, given how new Frank is to the series and to my writing. I'm glad you enjoyed the first chapter; I hope you enjoy this one and the conclusion!

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Part Two: White

Gasoline shoots up his nose and ignites the embers in his skull to a raging inferno.

Matt's skeleton leaps, straining against his skin to get out, get away, get anywhere else, but there's fire out there too. Fury of sound and stagnant, summer air, of gun powder and lead. He is being fed to the sun by a pair of callused, murderer's hands.

"Rise and shine, Red," Frank's voice is a splay burn on Matt's chin, neck, and upper chest. Whatever he says next gets lost in the cacophony of city noise that follow: neighbours fighting, sirens wailing, people chatting, screaming; hearts pounding; phones ringing. All so near and very far away. No depth, just there. Everywhere.

Frank, though, Matt picks up through the din, and he chokeholds that bastard's form in his perception. He lunges at him, Frank, the murderer. There are half-remembered screams of, "MY EYES!" resonating through the fire that deserve reckoning. Matt doesn't make a swing though. He changes course at the last minute, shoving his palms against his ears, cutting off one sense only to be overwhelmed by the others. He smells their sweat, their breath, their dinners; exhaust fumes and street meat and bullets. Dog. Kevlar. Explosives. Frank, Frank, Frank, who yanks his ears open and Matt is drowning in it, all of it. So much, so soon, too fast, too loud, too much, too much. He's actually repeating it like a prayer in his post-captivity rasp: too much.

Frank's hand snaps against his damp cheeks, "Need you to focus, Red. C'mon. Tell me you hear me. Yes or no. You fucking hear me, Red?"

"I fucking hear you," Matt stammers, wrestling his hands away from Frank back to his ears. "I hear everything," and he's trying, he's trying so hard to remember his training. Remember focusing on one sense at a time, one stimulus. There is so much fear in that though, in the terrifying vastness of his senses. It's worse than the first time; it's worse than the worst time. He's forgotten how much of the world he can experience without dying.

(And how little of it.)

The darkness outside his eyes is alarming too, menacing. Matt waits for the next spark, for the light in his head to become the light in front of his eyes. For the monster with his father's face and Foggy's voice to materialize. He breaks down into guttural cries and moans, warding off the phantoms, and the added sound causes the fire in his skull to burn hotter and hotter, whiter and whiter. The eye of a nuclear explosion inside him, around him, in all his senses.

"RED," slapping this time, quick jabs Matt doesn't sense through the corona of sounds, smells, and fire. Frank tugs his hands down and restrains them from going back. Matt dry heaves from the pain, and Frank claps him some more as he does. "Stay with me, Red."

Matt wishes he could puke the whole world on fire into Frank. All the clamouring inferno. Instead, he struggles to find the words he's been asked for amidst a cabbie yelling about his fare and heady smells of street meat and the tang of explosives in his mouth, "I'm with you."

"Say it again."

"I'm with you."

"You're not," Frank shoves Matt's hands into his chest. "Crying about how loud and much everything is. Quit plugging your ears. Adjust."

"It's not like that."

"It's exactly that. Hurts for a while, Red, but you can't get out of the box if you stay in the box."

Easy for Frank to say when he's not currently immolating, so Matt is loathe to admit that he has a point. But God, it hurts. It hurts so much. Matt tosses his head against the torpor of sensations, assailed at every turn. His scream, a smoky whisper ripped out of his charred lungs. Then crying, lots of that.

Frank grumbles, releasing Matt's hands - giving up, and it's all the incentive Matt needs to lock his arms and keep from grabbing his ears. He grits his teeth, better than this. Stronger than this. Stuff of Spartans, that's him, and hell if he's going to let the Punisher think differently.

…but God, it hurts. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. The city, his city, diving in and out of his skin like a ricocheting bullet. Matt chokes his next breath and the next and the next. Diaphragm drops, fire slips in; diaphragm rises, smoke comes out.

Repeat.

He fixes his ears on a scuffle that smells nearest, one that prickles his brain with familiarity. He has stood on these rotting floorboards, tamed that dog, run his fingers over that arsenal. He's in Frank's apartment again, lying on the floor on a mattress made of Frank's coat and an old fleece blanket. His shirt's off, coveralls gone, replaced with a pair of sweats made for a man twice his bulk. Fresh bandages circle with his forearms; sutures pull at the wounds. A fresh burn in his right bicep when his muscles tense.

Meanwhile, the onslaught teems around him. Matt hovers on the brink of another breakdown. He distracts himself. "How did you find me?" When Frank doesn't answer, he tries again, working his voice above a whisper. "How did you find me?"

"Found the guys who were holding you. Better question: how did they find you? Can't you turn invisible or something?"

Matt shakes his head, focusing. The big bad world screams at him with the voice of God, but he retraces his steps through the blackness to the last thing he remembers. Which is more blackness. "I don't remember."

"They drug you?"

"Yeah," he woke in the box with a splitting headache, nauseated as hell, but he can't remember what came before. Being in the mask, obviously. Chasing a scream through Hell's Kitchen.

"Didn't think they could get a needle through that costume of yours."

"No, no, it was gas. They locked me inside a storage container and…and pumped it in."

And if memory serves – which it doesn't, not well, cluttered and disjointed from Matt's time spent in darkness – there was someone else in the storage container with him. Another heartbeat. Screaming. Adult? Child? Bait. He tosses his head, distracted by the city again. The apartment falls out of focus. His memories too.

Frank resorts to shaking him, "Red? Red."

"I'm here," Matt mutters.

"You remember what day that was?"

"Wednesday," he replies, then clarifies, "Late Wednesday, early Thursday…it was night. What day is it?"

"Late Friday, early Saturday. Night," Frank parrots him dryly.

Matt shivers despite the heat. Two days. He was in the dark for two days. Silence for two days. He was out of time for two days. "I have to leave," he finds his feet under him and rises, mind ablaze with a white inferno from all the stuff he forgot he was blocking out. And it returns, stronger than before, Hell's Kitchen in all its glory, to say nothing of the fierce pain rollicking up through his legs from stretching. Matt cries out, grabbing his ears, his face, before he's back on the floor in writhing agony. Throughout it all, he's aware of Frank kneeling nearby, disappointed.

"I thought you said you were leaving."

"I hate you," is the best comeback Matt has.

"Yeah, yeah," I hate you too, Red. "Two days on your knees in a dark hole, no food, no water. You got dosed again while you were in there, needle this time. Found a piece of it in your arm, so you must have given 'em a fight. Explains why you didn't piss or shit yourself in the hole."

"I don't remember."

Frank doesn't care: it's irrelevant, "You have any idea why they wanted you?"

"I can think of a few reasons," he mutters, turning onto his side to better interact with Frank. He's pretty sure he has the right direction, but Frank's pulse picks up for a beat or two before falling back into freight train consistency. Matt keeps them on-topic. He is not about to talk about his eyes, "Who did they work for?"

"Not sure yet. Have to do some digging. Meantime, probably best for you to get your beauty sleep. You look like shit, Red."

Matt barks a laugh, "I usually do."

"No, you don't. Who the hell are you, Red? Outside the mask?"

"Thought you said you didn't care."

"Figured you for some dumbass with a few martial arts classes under his belt, but look at you. You part your hair. All your scars fit under a suit. You secretly a shrink, Red?"

"No."

Frank sounds like he doesn't believe him. He nudges Matt in the ribs with his toe. "Get some rest, Red. And don't fucking try to get up and walk again till you're ready. 'm not redoing those stitches."

Matt nods in surrender, no intention of getting up again. He forces himself to allow Frank to disappear into the noisy torpor, smelly torpor of the apartment. To let go to what he can't control. Remember the training. Remember the training. Remember his heartbeat in his skull and ice in his veins and if he's not here, he's back there. Two days of true darkness.

He hears it suddenly: relief. The sounds and smells and tastes washed aside. A rattling hum overtakes him, drowning out the burn.

Matt throws his head back to catch the breeze, and when that's not enough, he rolls onto his back. The tears on his face cool into a salve; his ears ring from the disappearance of sound. The star in his head folds into a mushroom cloud. He hurts, but when he tries his best to focus, he finds he can on the little things. The cheap air conditioner rattling in the window battling the inferno around him. Frank at the desk, the police scanner on low, dog trotting up to lick the devil's blood off his fingers.

"Hey, there," Frank mutters, ruffling the dog behind the ears.

Matt lets it go. Closes his eyes. Focuses.

The firestorm rages on.

* * *

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Frank opens his eyes. Max nips the cuff of his sleeve and tugs, whining. He shoots a concerned look at the wall vibrating across from Frank.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Slide.

"Red?" Frank pats Max out of his way, rounds the corner to his dilapidated bathroom. Flicks the light to reveal the kid curled up in front of the toilet, knock-knock-knocking his head against the wall.

"Christ, you're quiet," Frank rubs the sleep out of his eyes. Not many people can get the jump on him, and Red was working blind in a stranger's apartment. Made it all the way to the little boy's room, dry-heaved some more by the looks of it, and started doing…whatever the hell he's doing. Head-bashing. Muttering. "Not bad, Red: not bad. You wanna stop bashing your brains in?"

Red does but only so he can rub his moppy brown hair against the crumbling tiles, mumbling lowly to the point of incoherence.

Frank takes a knee. Kid whined his way into a fitful sleep because the city was too loud. Now he's unresponsive and dragging his head against the wall some more. Reciting articles of the New York Penal Code from memory. Jesus. This is his two days in the box, isn't it? Frank sighs, getting a look at his face, and unsurprisingly, the kid's flushed, sweaty. Blind eyes red-rimmed and fever bright, half-lidded in delirium.

Stress burn, Frank recognizes. Body's natural response to not being in hell is to throw itself right back into the fire. He tugs Red's wrist just enough to detach him from the wall. "C'mon," Frank's careful not to wake him up. You're not supposed to wake them up. Frank Jr. used to do this when he was sick. Folded himself under the piano bench and scared the ever-living shit out of Maria when he rolled out, pale and shaking, at about three in the morning…

Or was that Lisa? In the middle of the afternoon? Frank shakes his head, catching Red's firey face when it tries to hit the wall again. Doesn't matter which of his kids it was; Red isn't his kid. Aspirin, water, sleep: that's all he needs. Frank takes him by the arm and leads him into a standing position, then gives him a push towards the door.

Red clips the doorframe with his foot. Because he's blind. Because he's asleep. Because Frank's an idiot who let him go. "Kay, Red," Frank puts a hand on his shoulder and walks him back towards the blanket and bed roll in the middle of the room. Red's feet scuffle across the floorboards lazily. He's barely lifting them and seems only too content to take a load off on the tangled mess that passes for a bed. Frank has to catch him on the way down to keep him from hurting himself.

He had to do the same thing with Lisa when she-

Stop.

Max comes over and licks the kid's face like a mother who's been worried sick. Don't you ever do that to me again, you hear me? Red responds in kind. He hangs his head apologetically, his recitation of marijuana laws cut short with a moan. He drags a hand over Max's coat and leans, bringing his cheek to rest against the dog's chest. Max sits stoically, chin on Red's broiling scalp. He casts a sideways glance at Frank, begging with his eyes, "Can we keep him?"

Frank scoffs, patting Max a stern, "NO," before retreating. God damn it, Red's only been here for two hours and he's already softened a rescue pit bull from a dog-fighting ring.

Aspirin is easy. Finding a cup is hard. He doesn't own dishes, and he's not about to have the kid choke by taking pills dry. At a loss, Frank rinses out one of his Styrofoam coffee cups as best he can and fills it with water. Max is back at his sleeve before he finishes, nipping and tugging.

"What? What?" Frank steps out of the bathroom to find Red gone again. Disappeared into thin air, apparently. Frank puts down the water and the Aspirin, checks under the desk, behind his arsenal, in the kitchen. Red can't have gone through the front door without him noticing; he's not that quiet or quick in his current state. So where the fuck is he?

Max calls to him from the open window. Frank storms over, half-expecting to see a body on the sidewalk. What he hears instead is a scuffle above him, and when he looks, Frank swears a couple of oaths in rapid succession. There's Red, completely blind, sleep-scaling the wall of the building to the roof.

"The fuck are you, Red?" Frank has half a mind to fucking leave him. He climbed up there without falling, he can sure as hell climb back down or go home or anything. But Max is at the front door scratching to be let out, threatening to bark, wake the neighbours, have them discover the half-naked blind man on the roof and call the cops.

Frank grabs his jacket off the floor and heads out, Max in tow.

* * *

Happy reading!


	3. Black

Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: Frank hasn't seen white torture since he was overseas. Now, he's found Red curled up in a hole in the wall, sense-deprived, and he killed the guys who did it too quickly for him to truly be known as the Punisher.

Warnings: this story includes extreme sensory deprivation and isolation used for torture.

Author's Notes: I was 2200 words in when I seriously considered breaking this into an epilogue, as is my wont, but I was determined to stick to a three-part structure. As a result, the end involves a bit of hand-waving on my part. There is a spoiler in this from the latter episodes of season 2, one that I think makes sense given Matt's treatment.

I have to say that I loved writing Frank Castle, so I will definitely be back with more fic about him.

Readers, I am so grateful for your kind patronage. Please give yourselves a pat on the back for all your helpful support and comments! It's a pleasure, truly. I hope you enjoy this.

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Part Three: Black

Matt comes to, nauseated and spinning in infinite blackness, and can't believe he's here in the box. Always in the box. He tilts his head against the wall once, twice, three times, absorbing the shock of the blow through his cheeks. The vibrations give him presence, remind him that he is a body attached to a brain instead of a free-floating consciousness.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

He changes it up then, running his head against the wall, unsurprised when the sensations take form, gain substance. A chill biting into his scalp. Hair slipping easily against the tile. He shouldn't be aware of things like this through the get-up they've buried him in, but he does anyways. His brain fills in the gaps that his senses can't in an effort to tame the uneasy and limitless dark around him. Foggy speaks to him occasionally; Karen, too. Dad sometimes, perhaps most terrifyingly of all: Matty. Matty, it's Dad. Get up, Matty. Work to do.

He's already tried to get up a bunch of times. Sprang up like a shot when the drugs wore off, heart pounding in his head, stomach gurgling in his throat. Blood cold, limbs shaky. Whacked his helmeted skull on the ceiling, on the walls, trying to bust out trying to wake his ears, mouth, and nose up trying trying trying. But for all its boundlessness, the darkness come with barriers. Walls and restraints to limit his movements. The gas mask feeding him warm, scentless air. The ear plugs blocking out the sounds from everywhere except in his head. Blood on his fingertips, he thinks but can't be sure. They've gone cold from poor circulation, and he can't smell can't taste can't touch can't move can't breathe can't breathe…

Focus.

Focus up, Matty.

He actually can breathe, which helps hold his nausea at bay, but the rest of his senses are playing peek-a-boo. Sounds and scents popping up in his memories as if they're there, with him, though they can't be. Can't be. Matt fights them off, retreating into the darkness. The voice can't be real no matter how much it sounds to come from outside his head. The acrid scent of rot is an illusion. He's alone in the prison, but eventually the door is going to open. He won't stay in here forever. He's getting out.

A hand appears on his wrist. Matt's face peels off the tile. He sways, disoriented, thoroughly lost. His hands are dangling at his sides instead of pulled into a knot on his lower back. Heartbeats rattle against his bare chest _from the outside_. Not hallucinations conjured by silence. Real heartbeats. Person and animal. Matt tries to hold onto them, but his thoughts grow clouded with steam and heat. He thinks he rises, thinks he walks, thinks a flash of pain explodes in his foot; then again, he also thinks that Dad is speaking to him, so what he thinks is not at all what's real.

Go to work, Matty. Work to do. C'mon, Matty. Get up, Matty.

He gets down instead, knees buckling. Hands move from his back to his arms and capture him before he hits the ground. Not Dad, not Stick, not Foggy, and not the people who put him in the box. Someone who smells of GSR and sludgy coffee, who wears the callus on his trigger finger like a wedding band, who tugs a blanket out from under Matt's feet and helps drape it over his shoulders.

Matt melts into it: the feel of fleece on his battered, aching shoulders. It's lived-in scent chomping at the back of his mouth. He lets it slip down his arms just to feel it slip down his arms and ends up hyper-fixated on that break between blanket and air, the contrast of hot and cold. The way the tiny hairs on his arms pull down, down, down before springing back up, up, up. His not being able to decide if he's too hot or too cold or just right.

He makes his mind up a second later when heat wafts across his face. The animal heartbeat appears and a tongue laps at his cheeks and it's tragic, how good it feels to make contact with something living, something breathing. Something real and in the darkness with him. Matt lowers, allowing his face to press hard against the soft, down fur, drawing the heartbeat as close as he can to his ear. Wanting to crawl into the chest or push the heartbeat into his skull so that he's not alone for real.

His focus wavers. He hugs harder to compensate but his biceps shake with exhaustion. They loosen and drop, hands limp on the floor. Matt draws himself upright. Darkness. Silence. Breath comes in quick gasps. Thoughts bursting to life before fizzling out like fireworks. He scrambles to his feet, finally understanding. They let him out of the box and then they left him alone and he can get out. Get out of here. No door, can't sense one, but there's a window and Matt takes it and the city finds him. The muggy air is frigid against his skin. Sirens bounce off the footholds on the wall. He tumbles onto the roof, twisting to get his bearings, but noise is everywhere, all at once. No sense of geography or landmarks. Hell's Kitchen unbridled, unfiltered, swarming inside his skull. Matt hangs his head over the edge to parse through it, spinning and hot and sick. He's out but not, darkness clinging firmly to his senses. Ready to start this hell all over again with waking up in the box.

Footsteps approach him from behind. Matt whips around to challenge them. He can't place the voice, like a low rumble of thunder, nor can he place the speaker's position amidst all the static in his head.

"Stay away from me," Matt scuffles along the wall, trying and failing to ignore the sheer thrill of brick scraping along his naked back. Anything except coveralls and brick walls and blood. "I'm not going back. I'm not going back in there. Not when I…not when I might still be in there…"

God, what is the matter with him? He can't figure out if this is a dream or reality. And it's not like he can come out and ask. Where is he? Rooftop. With whom? God, that voice. That voice is familiar. That dog. That apartment. Not in the box and not in a dream and…

"Hot," Matt adds unhelpfully, though he is being honest. The chill that nipped him to the bone has been replaced with a rush of fever-heat through his body. Matt sways in his spot, lost for a moment as to where he is. He tilts his head back, then tilts his head forward reflexively. "I wanted to see the sky one last time," but he doesn't want to see it anymore because, "I saw it…I saw it in there, in the box, but it was different. Played out…played out in front of my eyes instead of inside my head: blue sky being chewed up and spit back out, Dad's…my dad's face fading to black and back again. Over and over. Thousands of times." The one great hope in his life shattered by two days in the impenetrable dark.

His company's heartbeat does a funny little dance. Fearful, nervous, and it's a heart that's not used to being either. Finally, Matt makes sense of what's being said to him, probably because it's so obvious: "Box does weird things to your head. Drugs didn't help neither."

"No," Matt shudders, hate clawing at the inside of his chest from getting caught, from not remembering, from not wanting to remember. From whatever was done for two days without his knowledge. From _this_ , hunkered on a rooftop yearning for touch and sound and life without any assurance that it's real or true. "This isn't the…this isn't the first time I imagined myself getting free. I saw it. I saw it all the time. I _saw_ it."

And sight is terrifying. Matt remembers sight materializing in a flurry of gunfire, flashes of memory. His eyes jumpstarted to working by the box's infinite darkness.

The voice empathizes. "Mind does crazy things, Red, and I've got no doubts yours has a lot of crazy to do it with," Matt huffs a laugh, "but you'd have to be a special kind of crazy to imagine me coming to rescue you."

"I didn't think anyone was coming to rescue me," Matt gives a tired, bitter chuckle. "Still not convinced I'm out. I want be out of there."

"Can't do that inside the apartment?"

Matt shakes his head. His eyes have closed. The city swirls around him gently. He stretches his hands along the ground and never hits a barrier. No walls except the one propping him up. He hangs his head in relief.

The footsteps tromp over to the space next to him. Not too close, but close enough that Matt finally places a name to the smell. Frank Castle, who emanates a cloud of ammunition wherever he goes, takes a seat on the ledge by Matt. The dog rushes between them and nuzzles Matt, nose prodding his cheek.

Matt can't raise his arm to pet the dog, but he can open his mouth to say, "You're right, you know."

"Have to be more specific," Frank says.

"I'd have to special kind of crazy to imagine you coming to rescue me."

Frank huffs, the closest sound he can muster to a laugh. The city swirls. Matt stares into the darkness in front of his eyes, the infinite black. It carries him away, and he is relieved to let it.

* * *

Frank lets Red get good and out cold before checking his eyes hopefully. Not that seeing makes sleep-scaling a wall more believable, only that it would assuage some of Frank's anger. Red's eyes are still unresponsive when Frank opens them though, and the way he hasn't acknowledged his blindness is worrisome even for someone with a fever as high as his.

Max is curled up next to the kid, head on his lap. He's unhappy to lose his pillow when Frank manhandles Red into a jacket and heaves him into a standing position. Max recovers when, upon returning to the apartment, Frank rearranges the mat and blanket over by the dog's corner. He gets Red lying down, and Max drops next to him, balancing his gigantic head on the kid's thigh before falling back asleep.

Frank forces two Aspirin down Red's throat without waking him, less a testament to his capacity for gentleness than Red's temperature and degree of passed-out-ness. He also dampens the cleanest rag he can find with some cool water and drapes it over the kid's forehead. Red turns over from the contact. Max grumbles into a new position. Frank picks up the compress and shoves it against the back of Red's neck, holding it in place when the kid tries to roll away again.

"Wormy little shit," Frank rolls his eyes. He settles back on his haunches, releasing Red but hovering pragmatically. The sooner his temperature drops, the sooner he'll stop wandering. That's something they can both get behind. Mercifully, Red is holding still. Frank wanders over to his desk and sits down, dog and charge in his field of view.

He twists on the chair a bit, putting his mind to work. Idleness makes him antsy, but there's no cure for it. Can't leave Red to go wandering. Can't hunt down the guy who took him hostage without more information. Like who in Hell's Kitchen would use white torture? Irish, Cartel, the Dogs: they like physical violence, not psychological brutality, especially for the guy who's been putting their members in the hospital.

Red twists on the bed mat, moaning. He mumbles in his sleep, more legal jargon – ex-cop, maybe? Oh, please, don't let him be a fucking lawyer. Not with his wide-eyed idealism. He reaches out with a floppy arm towards nothing. Frank watches the kid's fingers twitch on the floor in search of…something. To hold, Frank guesses. His other hand is tucked under Max's collar collecting the dog's fur, pulse, and body heat. And he kept running his head along the wall in the bathroom like it was the best God damn thing he'd ever felt.

Frank gets up, scanning the apartment. He finally grabs the kid's costume and shoves it under his fingers. Red hugs it to his chest and settles back into stillness, fingers working slowly in sleep to memorize the contours of his armour.

The mask, Frank takes back to his desk. He pokes at it, rolling his eyes. The sort of thing a kid would put together to play superhero. Fucking Hallowe'en costume, horns and everything, not to mention black lenses for the eyes. Frank holds up the mask and peeks through it. He can't see shit no matter where he holds the mask from his face. How Red sees out of it is…

Frank drops the mask on the desk, scrubbing a hand over his face, finally putting it altogether. "Fuck," he declares, reeling. Replaying his fights with Red with newfound respect and amazement. "Fuck, Red. The fuck are you."

Red doesn't answer. He clutches his body armour and sleeps.

* * *

There's a strip of leather tugging at his ankle, and Matt goes from sleep to attacking it without actually waking up. It's a repurposed collar that he unbuckles too easily to worry about being restrained, though the chain it's attached to is unsettling, especially since it's meant for the dog that is currently tasting every inch of his face.

Frank enters bearing coffee. "Mornin', Sunshine," he says.

Matt places a hand over the dog's mouth to protect his face so that he can focus. He ignores the affectionate nips to his wrist and thumb. Frank's apartment is crisp with morning air, the smell of contraband temporarily overpowered by restaurants waking up and the river warming in the sun. Matt tugs the flannel off his chest, wincing from the burn on his forearms.

A bottle of Aspirin flies through the air, perfectly aimed at his head like that bullet was on their first night. Matt catches it.

Frank scoffs, "Jesus. You know your eyes don't work, Red?"

Matt pours two of the pills into his hand and swallows them dry, "Yeah, I noticed."

"Don't seem all that concerned about it."

"I'm not."

"Not pissed off about it? Even a little? Guy like you, fighter like you-"

"I wasn't always a fighter."

"Was your dad-?"

Matt doesn't want to know where that came from, so he cuts Frank off as quickly as possible, "What time is it?"

Derailed. Strange for Frank. Matt tenses with suspicion. He senses Frank shrugging, "Morning."

"Helpful, Frank."

"You got somewhere to be?"

"Matter of fact, I do," he has someone to thank for two days in hell, to say nothing of the fallout in his day-life. Foggy and Karen and the office, anchoring his humanity inside the mask and his sanity inside the box.

Yet another topic for which Frank is not at all concerned, "Not like that you don't, unless you want to blow your secret identity," then, snarkily, "Matthew."

Matt's panic turns into anger so quickly he barely has time to appreciate all the reasons he should be afraid. Not because Frank knows but because if Frank knows, who doesn't? He's been unmasked for two days. Not going to take much for someone to put the devil and him together, no matter how much reasonable doubt his blindness provides. "There's a missing persons report out on me," he guesses.

"Nah, but there will be soon. That law partner of yours is a horrible fucking liar."

The information hits him like a punch to the chest. Matt tries to respond with the same force, "You met Foggy?"

Frank chugs a little more of his coffee, "Hm. And that uh…that secretary of yours. The one who helped Grotto at the hospital. She's smart. Why didn't you tell her your secret identity? Girl's got a poker face like-"

"You leave them out of this," Matt growls.

"You leave them out of this," Frank growls back. "What, you think 'cuz you wear a mask that they're safe? Took me five minutes and a church donation to find them."

Matt reels, "You've been to my church?"

"Would've gone to your God damn apartment if I didn't think you were gonna climb out my window again."

The ghost of the chain laps at his ankle. Matt vaguely remembers needing to see the sky last night and a soliloquy about the last time he did. To Frank, who is a fixture in all of the delirium, dragging him off walls and floors, out of one hell and into another. Who saved his ass for a second time despite having every reason not to. Who now knows everything there is to know about Matt Murdock: "Did you tell anyone, about me?"

"Said it before, Red: I don't care who you are. I care if I've got the cops or criminals knocking down my door looking for someone."

"Do you?"

"Not so far. Cops aren't looking for Matthew Murdock. Yet. No thanks to that partner of yours," Matt can feel Foggy's worry buzzing under his skin, sending his guilt into overdrive. Shot in the head, kidnapped, kidnapped again: no wonder Foggy's incapable of lying. Addendum – no wonder Foggy is more incapable of lying.

Frank continues, finishing his coffee, "And whoever had you holed up is quiet too. Some new player. Goes by the name the Blacksmith."

"He isn't going to stay quiet," Matt sighs. "I was out for two days. They could have pictures of me, video."

"Maybe they weren't interested in who you are either. New player, quiet, definitely ex-military: you might have never pissed this guy off. Which would be a fucking miracle," and Frank would know, because Matt's certainly pissed him off, "but stranger things have happened."

"Then what would he have wanted?"

"Break you, sell you, buy himself a few devil free days to make a play for Hell's Kitchen…doesn't matter what he wanted, Red."

Oh, here they go again: "Just matters that he did it, right, Frank?"

The train engine in Frank's chest starts chugging away again on a collision course with an iron curtain, "Don't start in on that sentimental bull-"

"He's a criminal, and he deserves to be punished-"

"You got that right."

"-but not by you, Frank, and not by killing him."

"Jesus, what the fuck do people have to do? What do they have to do, Red, for you to realize that they don't get better? You were locked up for two God damn days. I pulled you out of that box, you didn't know your asshole from breakfast. If you weren't blind before, you sure as shit would be now. You're lucky you got enough screws loose screws to survive that."

"And you've got too many screws loose, Frank!"

He charges around the desk and comes to kneel in front of Matt, geared up, as he put it. No longer the benign phantom of Matt's fevered memories: now a wild animal on the end of a fraying leash. His voice is infuriatingly calm despite the hammer of his heart, "You think this ends with you, but it doesn't. You're just the beginning. This guy knows who you are now, and even if he doesn't care, he knows that you do. You care about your law partner and your secretary. You care about your priest. You even…" Frank laughs, and it is an ugly sound, a bleak sound, empty and parodic, "You even care about him."

"I care that he pays for this. The _right_ way," though hell if Matt can bring himself to admitting Nelson and Murdock will defend him. The darkness is too real, made all the more palpable by Frank storming scant inches from him.

Frank hums decisively, taking aim for a new target. A worse one. "You still feel that way if he killed your partner? Or uh…your secretary. I could've killed her. At the hospital."

The train is coming. Matt's whole body rattles, but he stands there, offering only a pathetic, "Stop," in response. He doesn't need to hear it. He felt it that night, the urge to wrap his hands around the throat of the gunman for putting her in harm's way.

Frank feels it too, and he loves it. He loves the potential for escalation, revels in it. "You know, Scout shooters, we get trained in headshots, but there were always guys in my unit who liked finding other targets. Kneecaps, shoulders, guts. You ever been shot in the gut, Red? Heard it called one of the most painful ways to die, because you just lie there, bleeding out. Worst twenty minutes of your life."

He leans closer, an engine bearing down on Matt: "This guy locked you up behind a wall for two days. He kept you drugged, kept you clean, kept you alive. He's not the type of guy who takes headshots from the clock tower. This guy let you live because he knows better places to shoot you than the head."

Frank's heartbeat is terrifyingly calm; Matt's is leaping through his chest to the point that he's sure they can both hear it. "I'm going to find him before he can," Matt promises, wrangling his fear into purpose. "And I'm going to find him before you."

"He finds your friends, you'll be praying that's not the case."

Fear wraps his heart up in an icy fist. The blackness in front of his eyes looms threateningly, imbued as it is with Frank Castle, unstoppable force. Matt does say a prayer then, and he braces for impact.

* * *

Fin.


End file.
